Hospice and compounding pharmacy: once inseparable

Like hospice, compounding pharmacy offers a specialized service. Hospice continues to offer the strong emotional, psychological, and spiritual support to dying phatients and their family members that it has provided for many years, but the procedure for ordering drugs for the patients of hospice care in the U.S. has changed. Most hospice organizations work on a contract-only basis with service providers, which include compounding pharmacists, and in most cases a patient's drugs are ordered from large, remote pharmaceutical suppliers with whom hospice has contracts. At times, hospice patients' medication needs are not met by this system, and compounding pharmacists may be called upon in such situations, often to assist in the rapid relief of a patient's pain and discomfort. Since not every manufactured drug or dosage form is suitable for every patient, especially those that have become frail and weak, a compounding pharmacist should be one of the most vital members of the hospice team. Unfortunately, from hospice care's humble beginning at a time when "compounding" was the sole source of medication, many hospice organizations now consider compounding pharmacists and compounded preparations as only one of many options for emergency treatments. A once strong union is no longer so solid.